>I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first.

is there a rational argument in here or is this just a cheap psychological reflex to keep eating beef? Because it's not clear to me how solving our energy problems and the consumption of beef even intersect so that we couldn't do both at the same time.

You might as well have said "man I really should stop drinking and smoking, but we gotta solve the energy problems first"

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irishcoffee 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Isn’t that entirely their point? Stop bitching about cows (not a real problem at all) and fix an actual problem. Seems like you nailed it.

People aren’t going to stop eating beef, full stop. Won’t happen, full stop. It’s akin to suggesting we need to stop eating eggs, also will never happen.

These threads pop up on here every so often and it amuses me in a morose way. Nothing will ever change in the beef industry, not even in places like California, who are actively causing a water shortage in order to grow crops. That is a much bigger problem than farting cows, the whole region is aware of the problem, and no movement has been made to create a fix.

Give it up on the cows, there are bigger fish to fry.

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XorNot 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not just bigger, but actually tractable problems. The revolutionary fall in the price of solar power and batteries means we can actually displace coal, and have, without really asking much of anyone to do it. That's a massive advantage to have with a big problem!

There's a world coming where automation means electrified heavy equipment stops using diesel entirely, already happening in mine sites in Australia.

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Barrin92 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>and fix an actual problem.

but it is an actual problem. The beef industry has a large ecological impact. You yourself bring up the water shortages as a result of crop production... who do you think are the crops grown for?

You're just yelling "lalala I'm not listening" basically. The world doesn't consist of "real" and "fake" problems depending on how much you're offended by the topic, the world has a million problems, the more we tackle of them the better.

Sure you can say nothing will ever change, I don't care, but that's not an actual argument, that's just screaming like a kid who doesn't want his toys taken away, how is that an adult conversation. If you can't even tackle the cows how are you going to tackle bigger fish? Are the bigger fish being dealt with?

The only people who ever pretend you can ignore an ostensibly small regional problem, to fix the world are people who literally fix neither because in reality they're nihilists who don't want to solve anything because they never want to take any personal responsibility.

	▲	irishcoffee 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Clearly I struck a nerve, this isn’t a genuine conversation. I gave up reading your reply at paragraph 2. Have a nice day!